SPEAKER_01: They might not always feel safe to talk to somebody, but they can get lost in the book and see, oh, this person is going through the same thing that I'm going through.
SPEAKER_01: I feel so sane.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Queering Education, where we challenge what school is and build what it should be.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Teaching While Queer podcast about inclusive teaching, queer pedagogy, and showing up authentically in every classroom.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's do the work.
SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Queering Education, a Teaching While Queer podcast.
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_00: My pronouns are they, them.
SPEAKER_00: Today I am at the New Jersey Education Association's Watchelors LGBTQIA plus advocacy conference.
SPEAKER_00: I am so pleased to have been invited here.
SPEAKER_00: I get to sit down with different people at different levels of education.
SPEAKER_00: And at the moment, I'm sitting here with Hunter.
SPEAKER_00: Hi, Hunter.
SPEAKER_00: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: I'm good.
SPEAKER_01: How are you?
SPEAKER_00: I'm fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Can you uh introduce yourself to those who are listening at home?
SPEAKER_01: Of course.
SPEAKER_01: So hi, my name is Hunter.
SPEAKER_01: Uh my pronouns are they heat.
SPEAKER_01: I am currently serving as New Jersey State's uh aspiring ed co-diversity and justice chair.
SPEAKER_01: And I attend King University.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: I love um that you are doing service work while you're at university.
SPEAKER_00: I love that you're going into being a librarian for a public school, uh not excuse me, for a public library.
SPEAKER_00: And what I love about it is that a lot of people like to pigeonhole education.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, no, it's everywhere.
SPEAKER_00: And librarians are, in fact, some of the best educators out there because they really can help capture the imagination of young people, especially public librarians.
SPEAKER_00: I remember going to like read-alongs and whatnot at the public library when I was a kid.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's such a fantastic space and it's such a fantastic place to be headed.
SPEAKER_00: What got you into this desire to be a librarian?
SPEAKER_01: So, what's really funny is for a good chunk of my life, I actually wanted to go be a social justice lawyer.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I am a POC immigrant, queer.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I present female as born female.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and all of these things make up my identity, and they also are the reason I'm marginalized and discriminated against in all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: And so I wanted to go into social justice to stand up for people that look like me and have are going through things that I've been through.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and then very quickly I understood that that's not the best place for me due to my own holdups.
SPEAKER_01: And I pivoted a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew up loving the library, I love reading.
SPEAKER_01: It's such a huge part of who I am and my personality.
SPEAKER_01: And I just like I love getting lost in a book.
SPEAKER_01: I it's my favorite thing.
SPEAKER_01: Um, growing up, uh, once we got our first house, my parents literally built a bookshelf into my room for me.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where all of my books are.
SPEAKER_01: And my dream is to one day have uh at least a thousand books so I can be registered as like an official personal library.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, so that's the dream.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I was deciding to switch careers, I really thought about what's important to me and where can I do the best work and you know, where can I help people the most because I still want to help people.
SPEAKER_01: That's still something that's important to me.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, that's easy.
SPEAKER_01: I can be a librarian because I also know from experience growing up, so many little kids, so many children, even adults, they'll go in a library and they will not find a book where they find themselves, they will not find uh POC immigrant, uh like woman in the book and see themselves.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's always been growing up a thin white girl.
SPEAKER_01: And it was so important to me to be able to see myself in the literature that I was consuming.
SPEAKER_01: Growing up, I think it would have helped with my confidence a lot.
SPEAKER_01: Also, like if there was more queer books accessible to me, I maybe would have loved myself a little bit better growing up and be and be more understanding of the fact that it's okay to be queer and it's okay to love yourself and love other people not the same way that straight people do, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And so my goal is as a librarian, I get to curate the media that's in the library that I support and that community.
SPEAKER_01: And so no matter where I am as a librarian, my I'm going to curate the media to support that community and those children that are in school and trying to figure themselves out because they might not always feel safe to talk to somebody, but they can get lost in the book and see, oh, this person is going through the same thing that I'm going through.
SPEAKER_01: I feel so seen.
SPEAKER_01: And if that's what I can do to help my community, all of my communities, then I'm gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I have a controversial question.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh, especially because this is absolutely me.
SPEAKER_00: Audiobooks.
SPEAKER_00: Is it reading?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Vindicated, I am vindicated.
SPEAKER_00: I love audiobooks.
SPEAKER_01: I know book talk, bookstagram, booktube.
SPEAKER_01: They like to say that sometimes it's not reading, but an author wrote that, and you're still taking in the content.
SPEAKER_01: And just because that's how you take it in best does not mean that it doesn't qualify as reading.
SPEAKER_01: We're forgetting that a lot of people have different hangups and disabilities.
SPEAKER_01: Some people are dyslexic, some people are literally blind.
SPEAKER_01: Like audiobooks are reading.
SPEAKER_01: Let's let's get with the times, guys.
SPEAKER_00: I love that so much.
SPEAKER_00: I am a musician, and so I learn really well through years, and I've been able to memorize full-on like fiction because I listen to it so much.
SPEAKER_00: I'm so enraptured in the writing and hearing these stories that I I'm reading a book series right now that this is like my eighth time listening to it, and I know exactly what's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: I have the whole thing practically memorized because I'm listening.
SPEAKER_00: If I would have read it, here's what happens when I try to read I fall asleep, I get drowsy as I'm trying to read.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter what the text is, it doesn't matter how much I like it.
SPEAKER_00: I actively my eyes start getting tired.
SPEAKER_01: Um that's fair.
SPEAKER_01: I think like sometimes it's hard to stay like awake and focused if you're you feel very understimulated as well.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes reading uh with your eyes might be a little bit understimulating in a way.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I also find that like audiobooks are good for people that need to be constantly doing things.
SPEAKER_01: So, especially if you're a very busy person you like to read, audiobooks are great because you can be doing all these different things and still be reading.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's very good for multitaskers.
SPEAKER_00: I love that so much.
SPEAKER_00: So, given our current political climate, um going into being a librarian can feel a little daunting.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: As someone who is stepping into this career, someone who is aspiring to this career, what advice do you have for other folks who are thinking about it also?
SPEAKER_01: I think the best thing you can do is make sure that you know your options because it can be very scary as someone like I was just talking about this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I'm gonna have a job by the time I'm done getting my master's and my degree, and I'm able to be a librarian in this country.
SPEAKER_01: And so as of now, I'm only 20 and my master's is a few years away.
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I've already decided to start looking at like jobs outside of the United States.
SPEAKER_01: And it might not some might feel like I don't want to leave this behind, like there's still people that need you here, and I fully understand that.
SPEAKER_01: But when you're thinking about job security, you kind of have to also be aware that staying here might not be the best option, um, especially with how the cost of living is rising in America as well.
SPEAKER_01: Librarians are severely underpaid as well.
SPEAKER_01: Um and in general, public libraries are severely underfunded.
SPEAKER_01: I will say that it also depends on what kind of librarianship you're going into.
SPEAKER_01: So, uh media specialists, uh, so librarians that are in the schools or public librarians, we're getting paid nothing.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're going into academic librarianship, they get paid a lot more.
SPEAKER_01: So it also depends on where you want to be in your field of librarianship um and what you want to do.
SPEAKER_01: Because you can do a lot of good being a librarian in general, but depending on where you're going, there's more security than not.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: Not the future librarian telling us to do our research.
SPEAKER_00: You nailed it, you get the job.
SPEAKER_00: I try.
SPEAKER_00: So, what message would you like to send to educators who are listening right now?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Um as you know, as a student, I can see how hard it is for teachers who are trying to navigate everything with all of these rules that are coming out of the wayside.
SPEAKER_01: And they're they're trying their best to support their students, and it's extremely difficult.
SPEAKER_01: Don't feel disheartened.
SPEAKER_01: It's not don't feel it's okay to feel a little disheartened.
SPEAKER_01: Don't deny yourself feeling your emotions and seeing things the way they are, but do remember that the students that you're impacting do see what you're doing, and we appreciate you.
SPEAKER_01: And what you do does affect everyone in the long run because you are the reason everyone is able to have the jobs that they have.
SPEAKER_01: Like you need the everyone needs an engineer for something.
SPEAKER_01: How do people become engineers?
SPEAKER_01: Teachers.
SPEAKER_01: Everyone needs to learn to read and write.
SPEAKER_01: How do they learn to do that?
SPEAKER_01: Teachers.
SPEAKER_01: Teachers are the pillars of um just society, and it's not just teachers, it's everyone in education from uh special ed, um I forgot the words.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, paraprofessionals, uh, the security guards in the school, the janitors.
SPEAKER_01: Like, we need everybody involved in education, and everything that you're doing, everything that you're fighting for.
SPEAKER_01: It's difficult, it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: I see that.
SPEAKER_01: I feel, and I'm gonna try to help as best as I can.
SPEAKER_01: But also keep in mind that the students also see that, and we appreciate everything that's happening.
SPEAKER_01: What you're doing for us.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being a part of Queering Education.
SPEAKER_00: This is a Teaching While Queer podcast.
SPEAKER_00: Take what you need from this conversation and bring it back into your classroom and your students.
SPEAKER_00: I'm Brian Stanton.
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, keep showing up.